Here's the
link to another one. The 'Discussion' section pasted below.
The author of the original piece linked by AirFlyer is a bit whacked out, but I just wanted to point out that the scientific premise for abiogenic oil generation (i.e. not a fossil fuel) is not just theoretically possible, but appears to have been demonstrated in several different laboratories around the world. What % of oil comes from these sources, I don't know, but it makes for interesting reading.
copied and pasted from linked article:
Methane is expected to form inorganically at mantle pressures and temperatures from any carbonate species, such as FeCO3-siderite or MgCO3-magnesite, in the presence of H2O at oxygen fugacities near the wüstite-magnetite fO2 buffer. Such conditions may be widespread in the mantle and can be moderated by the presence of iron-bearing phases such as Fe2SiO4-fayalite, FeS-troilite, or accessory minerals such as FeCr2O4-chromite and FeTiO3-ilmenite. Indeed, our analysis shows that methane production is thermodynamically favorable under a broad range of high pressure-temperature conditions. The calculations indicate that methane production is most favored at 500°C and pressures <7 GPa; higher temperatures are expected to lead to CO2 and CO production through a reforming equilibrium with methane. The wide pressure–temperature–composition stability field of methane documented here has broad implications for the hydrocarbon budget of the planet and indicates that methane may be a more prevalent carbon-bearing phase in the mantle than previously thought, with implications for the deep hot biosphere (25). In particular, isotopic evidence indicating the prevalence of biogenic hydrocarbons pertains to economically exploited hydrocarbon gas reservoirs, largely in sedimentary basins (2); these observations and analyses do not rule out the potential for large abiogenic reservoirs in the mantle. Moreover, the assumption that CO2 is the sole carrier of mantle-derived noble gasses (26, 27) should be reevaluated. Finally, the potential may exist for the high-pressure formation of heavier hydrocarbons by using mantle-generated methane as a precursor.
Henry P. Scott *, , , Russell J. Hemley , Ho-kwang Mao , Dudley R. Herschbach , Laurence E. Fried ¶, W. Michael Howard ¶, and Sorin Bastea ||
*Department of Physics and Astronomy, Indiana University, South Bend, IN 46634; Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution of Washington, 5251 Broad Branch Road NW, Washington, DC 20015; Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138; and ¶Chemistry and Materials Science Directorate and ||Physics and Advanced Technologies Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA 94550
